Optimizing Your Amazon Product Pages

November 12, 2019

The Amazon marketplace is a crowded place with thousands of sellers in any given product category vying for the shopper's attention. So how are you going to stand out? Just throwing money at PPC advertising and hoping for the best will be a waste of precious ad spend if your product pages aren’t prepared to convert the browsers who find you into buyers. So let’s go in-depth on all the ways you can and should optimize your product pages on Amazon, shall we?

Getting the Clicks:Get Found & Look Good

Getting a shopper to click on your product first requires in-depth keyword research. Begin by asking yourself how you would go about looking for your product; those are your primary keywords. Expand your list of keywords by looking at what your competitors are using, and by experimenting with Amazon’s search bar to generate commonly used phrases. You can also use third-party software programs for more robust keyword research.

One mistake sellers commonly make is to only do keyword research at product launch, but search trends can change seasonally or over-time, so an optimized page will incorporate newly researched keywords monthly or quarterly. Don’t miss out on new keywords to include in your copy or to utilize in your PPC campaigns.

Utilize your Back-End Search Terms field: this is your space to include keywords and phrases that didn’t naturally fit into your product page copy. Don’t repeat words you’ve already used and don’t use any punctuation. Do include high-performing keywords relevant to your product, as well as commonly misspelled variations of your product. And ensure you comply with Amazon’s character limit, otherwise they might not index ANY of your back-end search terms.

Once a customer has found your product, a Prime badge will certainly improve your odds of being clicked on, so do consider FBA if your profit margins allow. For now, let’s focus on what will make that great first impression on shoppers; product images and titles.

Main Product Images:

Your main product picture is critical in attracting those initial clicks. It should be high-resolution, have a white background, clear lighting, and the product should fill up 85% of the available space within the image. Consult the guidelines before you post.

For a shopper looking to spend their hard-earned money, seeing really is believing, and a poor quality photo will make them skeptical of your product. Consider hiring a professional photographer to capture your product perfectly, and save you time. No budget for a photographer? Most cell phones these days do an adequate job in capturing quality DIY photos, and Amazon provides tools within its app to help sellers improve their images.

To ensure you use the image that attracts the most clicks, get outside opinions. Pick 3-4 different versions of your main product image and ask a small group of reviewers to pick which image they would click on. Or you can use third-party services to test your images with an audience. Look at your competitors’ images to see what’s working well and how you can subtly differentiate yourself.

Product Title:

Many sellers are tempted to stuff in as many words as possible in an effort to capture search terms. But remember: getting onto the customer’s search results page was only the first step—now you need to get them to click on you and not your competitors, meaning your title needs to be clear and easy to understand. Your product title, like everything else we’ll cover here, is a balancing act between appeasing Amazon’s algorithms and guidelines but also appealing to human shoppers who will be turned off by lengthy, jumbled text.

**Amazon discourages including features/benefits, but it’s worth trying to squeeze in a few extra keywords relevant to your product.

***Use only if applicable.

Generally speaking, the optimal character length for product titles is 60-80 characters, though this will vary depending on your product category. If you’re finding it difficult to stay in that range, then at least make sure your brand and product title are featured upfront before Amazon truncates your title with an ellipsis (. . .) in search results, and that the ellipsis is not appearing in the middle of a word on mobile or desktop.

Getting the Conversions: Turning Browsers into Buyers

Now, imagine that the shopper has clicked on your product based on your clear title and appealing product image. Once they’re on your page, it’s time to make your pitch. Better make it a good one, because Amazon has sponsored ad placements for competing products all over your page.

You can research what your target customers are looking for by reading the reviews of your competitors’ products. What are the common likes and dislikes regarding this product? What do the customers want from the product and what about this product category has let them down in the past? Use that information in your images and copy to get an edge over your competitors.

Remember, the buyer can’t examine the product in person, so it’s your job to give them as close to a tactile, sensory experience as possible through images, video, creative copy, and A+ content. So let’s get into it.

Product Images & Video:

You need at least five images on your product page, and ideally a video, for an optimized product listing. Lifestyle images, infographics, and videos will add detail to the customer’s vision of your product.

Detail Shots: Show the product from different angles, and use pictures that highlight texture, composition, quality, and special features. Make sure they’re high-res and zoomable.

Infographics: Use text in your images to educate the customer on the technical details of your product or to highlight the features/benefits.

Lifestyle Images: Make the use-benefit of the product clear, so customers can imagine enjoying your product in their day-to-day lives. Lifestyle images should use people (even if it’s just a hand) to help shoppers project themselves into an imagined scenario with your product.

Videos: Adding a video to your product page has been shown to result in great conversion metrics. Seeing how a product moves, what it does, how it’s made, and how it can be used is invaluable in converting shoppers into buyers.

Bullet Points:

To help you optimize your product’s five bullet points, here are five points of advice from someone who writes copy for Amazon product pages (and frequently shops on Amazon too.)

Bullet points should give your customers the key product features at a glance. Make it a hierarchy, with the most significant product features at the top. 100 characters per bullet point is recommended.

Your bullet points should integrate high-performing keywords and long-tail phrases so that your product page will be SEO savvy.

Your brand appears more reputable and trustworthy when the copy within your bullet points is professional and grammatically correct.

By being accurate and addressing possible questions upfront, your bullet points can help you avoid negative reviews from customers who misunderstood your product.

Consider utilizing a copywriter, or contracting with an Amazon advertising agency (like Egility) who have copywriters on staff that specialize in weaving researched keywords into compelling copy for your product.

Product Description:

Your product description should be different from your bullet points, greater than 500 characters but no more than 1,000, and it should synthesize the overall pitch you’re making to customers. Think of the product description as an opportunity to tell a quick story about your brand, the product you’ve made, and why the customer’s life will be improved by buying said product. And as you should in all your copy, make good use of keywords throughout.

A+ Content:

Formerly known as EBC, this content replaces the Product Description on sellers’ product pages, giving customers more opportunities to engage with your product and your overall product catalog. For vendors, A+ Content will appear alongside your product description. In both cases, A+ content can improve the customer’s impression of your product, and familiarize them with your brand.

Reviews:

Reviews rank highly with shoppers in helping them decide if your product is a safe bet. That said, it is undoubtedly difficult to accumulate reviews. Even the recommended minimum of five can require hundreds of sales, but there are a few things you can do.

First, optimize your product page (which you’re already considering if you’re reading this, so good on you). Without reviews, your product page needs to pull its own weight by looking as professional as possible.

Second, advertise both within Amazon and without, and offer initial discounts till sales pick-up. The goal is to drive traffic to your product page so you can gain lots of potential reviewers.

Third, send one (and only one) follow-up email to your buyers requesting a review, or include a note within the packaging asking for an honest review. But don’t forget; Amazon has banned incentivized or manipulated reviews, and they are very good at finding and removing reviews from family and friends. Your request for reviews must be neutral and fair. We recommend studying Amazon’s guidelines before you compose your emails or notes asking for reviews.

Amazon offers a couple of programs you can enroll in to increase your odds of getting reviews.

Amazon Early Reviewer Program (For 3P Sellers Only): If you are Brand Registered, you may enroll in this program from Seller Central for a fee of $60 dollars. Amazon will ask up to five of your customers, at random, for an honest review of your product and reward them with a small Amazon gift card if they participate. Reviews will be gathered by Amazon for one year or until your product gets five reviews (regardless of source).

Vine Program (For 1P Vendors Only): Once enrolled in the Vine Program, your product will be reviewed by “Vine Voices,” who are essentially customers designated by Amazon as top reviewers. As with the Early Reviewer Program, you are not guaranteed positive reviews, but for a new or struggling product, this is a great way to collect reviews.

TLDR:

Understanding Amazon’s algorithm and increasing ad spend alone won’t pay off if your product pages aren’t converting browsers into buyers. You have to please the Amazon algorithm and the Amazon shopper, so invest time in optimizing your product pages for both. Start building momentum in your sales and page-ranking by finessing your title, images, video, copy, and A+ content, and accruing those all-important reviews. And remember, this isn’t a once-and-done kind of deal: optimizing your product pages should be a continual, repeated practice to keep your products relevant and competitive in Amazon’s bustling marketplace.

Hillary has a B.S. in English / Rhetoric & Composition and is a copywriter and content creator for Egility. She specializes in turning ordinary language into compelling copy for Amazon product pages and turning effective communication into sales.